Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Powell Gardens' annual spring plant sale will open for Friends Members this Friday night (May 6, 2011) from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m and to any visitor on Saturday and Sunday (May 7-8) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This year the sale will be found in middle of the asphalt parking lots under a single 60 x 12o ft. tent for your shopping convenience and improved accessibility for all.Senior Gardener Eric Perrette in the Greenhouses poses for his picture with some of his hard work: a fantastic crop of perennials grown for our annual spring plant sale. Ornamental Clementine Mullein (Verbascumhybrid) is the upright orangish flower in front of him.Vivid 'Blazing Sunset' Avens (Geum hybrid) is a new perennial for full sun this year. The Perennial Garden's Senior Gardener: Jennifer Bolyard will be on hand Friday night to help you with your selection of perennial plants at the sale.

The sale will also have our favorite star performers like the White Nancy Lamium (foreground) and various Foamflowers (Tiarellaspp. ) background. These all make great groundcovers for shady gardens. Senior Gardener Janet Heter in the Rock & Waterfall Garden will be on hand Friday night for your shade garden selection.

We will have a plethora of plants that like rock gardens or similar well drained locations like along the edges of paths. Caitlin Bailey, our Senior Gardener on the Island Garden will be on hand Friday night to help you choose the right ones for you.

Some of the plants we have are just plain interesting (though not necessarily colorful) like this Gray's Sedge (Carex grayii) -- a local woodland native with sputnik-like seed heads. It is a fine grass-like plant for shade gardens and a great host plant for many species of skipper butterflies. Our plant selection contains great plants like this to make sure your garden is ecologically sound.

We have put together more containers than ever for this sale as Mother's Day is also on Sunday. Horticulturist Anne Wildeboor in charge of our annual displays will be on hand Friday night and Saturday for helping you select the right container and the right annuals for your garden displays.

Here's a picture of our Greenhouse #4 which is full of annual plants for the plant sale. We are also growing many edible plants and hope you sign up for "plant a row for the hungry" with Harvesters who will be on hand at the sale for you to do just that. Our Horticulturist Matt Bunch in charge of the Heartland Harvest Garden will also be on hand Friday night as he selected all the edible plants we will have at the sale.

We will have the best selection of proven hydrangeas for Greater Kansas City as well. These Proven Winners Invincebelle Spirit Hydrangeas (Hydrangea arborescens 'NCHA1') are the first pink-blooming selection of this Missouri native plant.

We'll have the marvelous First Editions Panicle Hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata) from Bailey Nurseries as well (http://www.baileynurseries.com/). Here's the lovely variety 'White Diamonds'cultivar and all these are great summer bloomers despite the vagaries of our weather. These plants will bloom this year but are not yet in bloom as they are summer flowering varieties.

We'll have more Butterflybush(Buddleiaspp.) than ever before! The intriguing grayish leaves of Butterfly Grande 'Sweet Marmalade' shown. The whole new line of Butterfly Grande and Butterfly Petite Buddleias from Ball Horticulture (http://www.ballhort.com/) are growing magnificently and heavily budded for bloom shortly and then repeating through summer. In flowers from white to yellows, pinks, purples and near blue and red; we'll have a butterflybush to suit your garden needs and our friendly flying flowers they attract.

For a complete list of all the 100's of plant varieties at the sale go to our website: www.powellgardens.org and click on What's Happening: Spring Plant Sale: See the details: Spring Plant Sale List.

I hope to see you Friday night sharp at 5p.m. for the Friends of Powell Gardens only preview sale. If you are not a member you can join at the Front Desk on Friday before the sale! Quantities of all plants are limited and many items sell out Friday evening. All proceeds from the sale help fund Powell Gardens operations and any extra plants are recycled into the gardens.